John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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As of November, you'll have two choices if you want a compact five-door hatchback with a clean diesel engine.
One is the brand-new 2010 Audi A3 TDI, which was just given a base price of $30,775...
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Toyota Prius Plug-In To Launch at Frankfurt Auto ShowToyota will show the final version of its prototype Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Frankfurt Motor Show two weeks hence, trying to keep up with the flurry of electric, hybrid, and diesel concepts to be shown there. With numerous concepts from German automakers, and GM pulling out all the...
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Diversion: Electric Car Video By They Might Be GiantsHonestly, this post has very little to do with new cars for sale today. Instead, think of it another piece of green propaganda encouraging you to consider buying an emissions-free electric car when they start to enter the market in 2011 or thereabouts. The experimental alt-rock band They Might Be...
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2010 Dodge Caliber: Fewer Engines, 30 MPG Highway, Better InteriorThe Dodge Caliber hatchback has never been at the top of our compact-car list, in part because of its lousy gas mileage compared to the competition. Now, Chrysler has simplified its engine and drivetrain options to improve the gas mileage of the 2010 Dodge Caliber slightly, along with its platform...
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Driving Green: Add Real-Time Traffic to Nav System, Save 4 Days a YearHow would you like to save four days' worth of driving every year? According to a study by Navteq, which provides digital map, traffic, and location data, you can do that simply adding real-time traffic information to a navigation system that you use for every trip. Their findings show that adding...
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Do Toyota Prius Hybrids Cause Cancer? [sigh] No, They Don't.Auto "influencers" are the people you ask whenever you have a car question. By virtue of editing AllAboutPrius.com and other High Gear Media sites, we're known as sort of a de facto influencer. And so we get some of the most random questions you can imagine. The latest was from the mother of a High...
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Ford's been around a long time; it just celebrated the 100th birthday of its Model T. Much of its green news these days focuses on its upcoming 2011 Ford Fiesta subcompact, the well-received new...
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BMW's Newest, Greenest Concept: Vision EfficientDynamicsBMW's legendary M series performance cars use big, brawny, turbocharged gasoline engines. The 2009 BMW M5, for example, has a 500-horsepower, 5.0-liter V-10. How many cylinders ??? Where ??? But the concept car BMW will unveil in two weeks at the Frankfurt Motor Show promises "the performance of an...
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Electric-Car Maker Think Emerges From Bankruptcy, Plans US SalesWe've always had a soft spot for Think, the Norwegian electric-car company. From its start in 1991, it set out to build not just battery-powered vehicles, but electric cars that could be used on highways and pass all safety tests in any country. That sets it apart from the scores of EV companies...
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Lexus Goes Hybrid-Only...in BritainWell, here's a surprise. It's no news that Lexus has found it slow going breaking into the luxury market in Europe, which is dominated by Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Jaguar. By contrast, Lexus has become the highest-selling US luxury brand since its 1989 launch, largely on the strength of its midsize...
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More Kids Than Seats? How About a Six-Door Toyota Prius Limo?Auto websites compete with each other to get the newest, the latest, and the coolest. Sometimes one or more of the 39 sites in the High Gear Media network gets a scoop (like our recent first drive of the 2010 MazdaSpeed3); other times, we don't. So we tip our hat to our buddies at Jalopnik, who got...
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Mini Coupe Concept Celebrates 50 Years of Minis, Targets Audi TTOn Wednesday, August 26, 1959, a new type of small car was unveiled in Austin and Morris dealerships across Britain. Many buyers didn't know quite what to make of the Morris Mini-Minor and Austin 7even (yep, that's what they called it--for a very short while). It had seats for four, it was just 10...
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Back in March, VW confirmed it would sell the Polo in the US in 2011. The five-door hatchback model was unveiled earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, and now Volkswagen has released details...
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2010 Toyota Prius Price-Gouging Pops UpWe've just read some nice investigative reporting by DailyTech's Jason Mick on a well-known but infuriating phenomenon: auto dealer price gouging, in this case on the sought-after 2010 Toyota Prius. We're far from the only outlet to note that the Cash-For-Clunkers plan boosted sales of the 2010...
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Are Carmaker Sites Using Hybrids (Ineptly) As Spam Bait?We get a lot of spam. Everyone gets a lot of spam. In fact, Symantec says nine of every 10 e-mail messages are spam. But we're scratching our head over a recent spam that uses the topic of hybrid cars, particularly clumsily, to link (via Dubai, no less) to real carmakers' hybrid, diesel, and...
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2010 MazdaSpeed3: Sporty Green Sizzle, Zoom-Zoom StyleOnce in awhile, High Gear Media editors get lucky. Last Thursday, our own Bengt Halvorson managed to snag a drive in the 2010 Mazda MazdaSpeed3 before any other reporter. Which means those sites that just posted their reviews yesterday (they know who they are ...) were just a tad behind the curve...
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2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI Stickers Under $22K, Over 40 MPG HighwayAs we regularly note, Volkswagen's line of TDI diesels has lots of fans out there. Now, the company has priced the eagerly awaited 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI, with the cheapest version coming it at $21,990, just a hair less than $22K. While it's not the diesel-for-under-$20K that diesel fans had...
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Want a Cash-For-Clunkers Rebate? Do It RIGHT NOW. Today!OK, kids, this is it. If you have a clunker and you want to trade it in and get a $3,500 or $4,500 rebate for a new vehicle under the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) program ... STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Do it right now, today, and get to your dealer no later than 4 pm. Today. But call first, to...
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We often get asked whether it will be necessary to replace the high-voltage battery pack in a Toyota Prius after it's five or ten years old. The answer is, almost certainly not.
Toyota is required...
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GM's Plug-In Hybrid: Not a Saturn, Not a Buick, Will Try AgainJust two weeks ago, we reported that GM's first plug-in hybrid vehicle--originally meant to be a Saturn Vue before GM decided to sell Saturn to Pennske--would become a Buick crossover. My, how quickly things change in the new Internet world. As GM said Wednesday on its Fastlane blog, "not all the...
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Poetry In Motion? It's the 2010 Tesla Model S Electric SedanBack in April, GreenCarReports.com was lucky enough to get a ride in the world's only running version of the 2012 Tesla Model S electric sedan. It happened at the car's New York City preview, the first time since its unveiling in an LA rocket factory that it was seen in public. Now, a prototype of...
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Why is the 2011 Chevrolet Volt NOT a Hybrid?Even after 10 years, hybrid-electric vehicles are still foreign to large parts of the car-buying public. People aren't sure if they're worth the money, they worry that the battery may need replacing, and some still don't understand that you don't need to plug in a hybrid. Well, brace yourselves...
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BREAKING: Cash-For-Clunkers May Be Over, Out Of Money, KaputAs we enter the news day on Thursday, it appears that the "Cash For Clunkers" program could well be out of cash. The National Association of Auto Dealers (NADA) asked the US government to suspend the program as of midnight last night, and warned dealers they are at risk of not getting reimbursed if...
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Naturmobil Gives a New Meaning To Green HorsepowerSix wheels. Two seats. One horsepower. Rear-mounted hybrid powertrain. Top speed: 28 miles per hour. It's the future of green transport. Maybe. In April 2006, Iranian engineer Hadi Mirhejazi began working on what he calls the Naturmobil, a vehicle powered by a single horse trotting on a treadmill...
John Voelcker